Communication Breakdown
by ShyLikeThat
Summary: Crackfic. "I'm not gay." He proclaimed to her with clenched teeth. -Hibari, Chrome
1. Dino Cavallone

Title: Communication Breakdown

Summary: "I'm not gay." He proclaimed to her with clenched teeth. -Hibari, Chrome. Crack fic

Disclaimer: I _wish_ I owned KHR. Sadly, Akira Amano stole the idea from me. (Kidding, btw. C:)

-X-

"But... isn't he, isn't he _playing for _the other team?" Chrome's face was etched with a slight bewilderment, since, _really now,_ how could they ever expect her to do such a horrible thing to a man that was... you know, already... er. Determined.

_Not that there was anything wrong with that_.

She was completely supportive, rest assured, and respected how much courage it must've taken him to come into terms with it himself. Hence, in saying so, it would be really cruel of them to suddenly barge into his private life like that, especially since he was at that stage where he was like a... a flower.

Yes.

A flower, which just began to bloom in the early spring. Just about to blossom, you know, not exactly a wholesome flower yet. He would need guidance, support, and er. Carbon dioxide, to get into that phase, and numerous of cruel and sadistic remarks would do nothing but make his inner flower shrivel up and _die._

And God _knew_ they couldn't do that. Men like him... _men like him_, were uh. Sensitive— sensitive, _yes_, at times like these. Even if he didn't look it, or seem like the type to be it, she was sure he was. Without a doubt. Sensitive.

Chrome tried to explain this to Mukuro, and Mukuro had only paused, mind seeming to have automatically shut down at the words _Hibari-san _and _is like a flower _to prevent any nauseating thoughts to enter his mind.

_Him? _A _flower?_ Like the man-eating kind, right?

"... What do you mean?" He perused, eyes slightly crinkled.

The girl looked a little dumbfounded, and felt uneasy as she tried to rephrase her sentence. "Well... he's... he's, you know." Chrome seemed troubled, chewing her bottom lip. "Haven't you ever noticed?"

Noticed? Noticed _what? _How could she notice something he hadn't?

Mukuro made aggravated noises, believing that his eyes were getting impaired with age.

He tried to see it in her expression though, if only because the girl had started to stare at him like the fact was so obvious it was almost sneering in his face, and that the only reason for him not being able to see it was because he was retarded. Whatever it was.

Hell, he finally grumbled. If she noticed, then in a way he noticed too. It was good enough.

He nodded sagely, if a little stiffly, and Chrome immediately brightened, glad that someone _finally_ got it.

She continued, enthused. "Like in the meetings."

"The meetings. Yes." Mukuro echoed half-heartedly, though with enough attention to sound imperious.

" And the way he _stares _at them."

"Stares. Definitely."

"He treats them with a little bit of kindness,"

"Kindness. Of course."

"Hibari-san is clearly in love."

"In love. _Clearly—_wait." His mind backpedaled. He stared at her. "_Who?_"

"Dino-san and Tetsuya-san," Chrome said, as if reminding him. She then smiled a bit. "It's sweet, actually. He's like a flower."

"_Hibari?_" Mukuro stressed, before his eyes narrowed at Chrome surreptitiously. "Did Ken try to spike your tea again?" _Because I will kick his ass._

"Um. I don't think so." Chrome murmured, and then trailed off. "Because it just seems so _natural—_"

"... Natural..." He repeated, speculative. Mukuro stared at the girl's expression. Chrome would never blatantly lie in his face, right? And even if she did, why would she lie about the cloud guardian's affairs, and not something useful like almost running over an old lady at traffic? Wait, that was him.

Even so. He found it suddenly agonizing to look the girl in the eye without bursting off into demented laughter. Mukuro's jaw twitched. He seriously thought he was going to kill himself holding it all in.

"It's plausible," He managed to drawl, wrestling inner demons and things. Pity she missed the evil glint in his eyes.

And so began Plan A.

-X-

"Can I talk to you?"

Wide eyes. She's really, really wide-eyed.

Was the first thing Hibari noticed about Chrome. Ten years, you know, really made you notice things about people.

It was almost _shining_ up at him. He fought the urge to cringe, because it was just so detestable like that.

"What?" He immediately snapped, noticing that the girl still didn't leave even after seeing his obvious annoyed expression. I mean, he was already making it evident as is. What else did she need to take a hint?

"Mukuro-sama wanted to ask—"

"No." His face darkened. Chrome stared at him desperately.

"Oh. Um. Did I say Mukuro-sama?" She laughed, waving her previous sentence away like it was some sort of dust. "I meant, _I_ wanted to ask--"

"You're not any different." He furrowed his brows. "No."

Chrome's lips pursed. She looked at him, and then opened her mouth. "It's _very _important." Her then, probably to _her_, very determined face cracked slightly. "To. Umm. Cloud-man, _please—"_

"I have a name." Hibari stated tersely, cutting her off. Chrome paused, and he felt oddly annoyed at this.

"Hi—" He started, growling. Chrome brightened.

"Right. Hibaki-san—"

"_Hibari_," He growled, and made a turn to leave because this was just getting ridiculous—

"Wait!"

– the girl didn't even know his name. He hoped they'd both crash on their next air plane flight and go to hell—

"He has something about you!" Chrome almost squeaked. Hibari immediately paused, face stiff. He very nearly shuddered at the sudden cold chill that rampaged up his spine, if he wasn't, you know, so _stoic_.

Noticing her slight chance, Chrome became serious and added in a raspy sort of voice that was meant to be secretive; "It can destroy your reputation." Though it came out in a much higher-pitched tone, sounding more like school-girl gossip than a menacing premonition.

Which. Probably wasn't that much of a significant change.

He didn't lose face, but unfortunately managed to trip over his own brisk stride. It was only a little bit. And he acted like it didn't even happen after he regained himself, though it was enough for the girl to try to catch up and grab his sleeve and _she had three seconds to stop touching him before he'd fucking decapitate her arm—_

"Are you gay?"

The question felt like a hard slap.

Hibari spun around sharply, feeling the whiplash recoil at his neck. "_Excuse me?" _He tried not to sound hysterical.

"Are you—"

"I _know. _I mean. Just. _The hell._" His frame shook with unreserved anger. He was so far off from reacting indignantly, it really wouldn't be unreasonable if he suddenly just bit her head off instead.

"I'm not sure I understand you." She had the gall to be confused, when _he_ _here was supposed to be. So fucking—_

Hibari made strangled noises. He wanted to choke her so badly.

"_No_." He finally hissed, regaining enough composure to clear the violent turmoil inside his head and resist all temptations to chuck the eye-patch wearing girl through the window. _You're not a pirate, damnit. Wear the fucking proper dress-code._

He needed to stop and think about this rationally. Had to be calm, patient, and collected. She was not the type of girl to go around slandering people. She was not—

"Stop staring at me." He groused.

Chrome blinked. "Um."

"_Stop it._" He threatened. His eyes were vicious.

"I was just."

"I know." He drummed his fingers together, and then snarled as she once again adopted her sympathetic, softening-of-the-eye-because-he's-misunderstood look. It screamed understanding. It was almost painful.

Hibari breathed deeply, trying to clear his head. "What makes you think that I'm..." He paused, struggling, and abruptly hated her for making him say a word that shouldn't even _be _in his vocabulary. "...gay."

She looked surprised at his question. Which was, _no_. No, damn it. She didn't even _have _the right. "I-I'm sorry, I just couldn't help but notice—"

"You _noticed._" He ground out, and immediately felt agitated about this. What part of him did she deem _uncertain?_ Hibari gritted his teeth. "_Explain. _Now."

To his horror, the girl nodded obediently, and then _smiled_. "The way you look at Dino-san... and the way you treat Tetsuya-san...its unlike how you treat the rest of the family. Its... _special_."

What.

Hibari tensed, hair possibly standing at the back of his neck. He should've never. He _should've. _Just. _Never._

She... she assumed he was gay with... Dino, and Tetsuya? _What_.

"I think... I think its sweet." Chrome murmured gently, repeating the exact same words that she had said to Mukuro after receiving the exact same response. She thought it would help them understand.

_No_. Far from it. Hibari felt the muscles in his hands tighten, deliberately balling them into fists. His nails dug into his skin.

"I'm_ not_ gay." He proclaimed through clenched teeth.

-X-

Dino entered Sawada Tsunayoshi's office and left three hours later, softly closing the door behind him with the guilty smile of having accidentally ripped the tenth Vongola's boss off and later surprising his family with an extra onslaught of euros.

Then he saw Hibari and he immediately froze, smile slipping off of his face as he discerned the younger man's murderous and lethal glare.

He was pretty sure it was just the lights. I mean, what the hell did he do _this_ _time?_ A minute hadn't even passed after he had left Tsuna's office and came face to face with the cloud guardian.

Was it the way he closed the door? Was it the way he walked with the prominence of having just swindled Vongola's boss—accidentally! He didn't know that Tsuna couldn't tell the difference between a joke and a serious business proposition! The kid was sweet, but Vongola was pretty much fucked up with his entrepreneur skills— and being caught red-handed?

Hibari's eyes narrowed as the blond repeatedly tried to open and close his mouth, like a fish out of water. The younger man's homicidal tendencies, emitting in voluminous, thick waves that could probably choke a cow, produced a dangerous beeping in Dino's time-to-haul-my-ass radar.

As he should, with the quickest and nearest escape route. But he didn't, because he was too optimistic, and therefore foolish, to think that maybe it _was _the lights—or you know, indigestion, that made Hibari appear bloodthirsty and menacing.

Err. More so than usual, that is.

Meanwhile, Hibari glowered, the events from yesterday tearing into his mind like a ferocious wild beast upon running into Dino Cavallone.

He shouldn't have taken offense in the first place. He shouldn't even have remembered. But he did. A man of his personality could only sit and brood in front of his desk so much before he started looking demonically possessed, and worst of all, embarrassed to the point of restlessness.

_He wasn't gay, damn it._

So, being Hibari Kyoya, his patience inevitably snapped, not that it was very long in the first place, and he quickly, _determinedly_ decided to do something about his situation, contemplating his options with twisted meanderings and a quiet, evil smile.

Among which were:

1) Kill Dino.

2) Kill Dino slowly and unmercifully.

3) Feed Dino to his pet.

Had a week passed by, and had he not seen the Cavallone man, then perhaps—_perhaps_, he would've forgotten and just brushed it off.

But there he was. The _bane of his existence._ Alive. Breathing. That wouldn't do anybody any good.

His inner serial killer tempted him with liberated, promising thoughts; almost like a sort of peaceful mantra for murdering people, and suddenly, the desire to kill a human being had never felt so justified in his mind.

If he killed Dino and left his dead body outside of Chrome Dokuro's office, then maybe she'd be finally convinced that he wasn't _bent_, but instead ruler-edge straight, and maybe he'd finally be able to sleep peacefully at night with a clear conscious, and without the troubling trepidations that someone out there was questioning about his sexuality.

Dino saw the pleased, maniacal glint that passed in Hibari's eyes. A cold sweat rolled down the side of his face.

The cloud guardian's attention snapped at him suddenly, like a cobra would its prey, and he flinched.

"Dino Cavallone." The younger man addressed.

He fought the tremor in his voice. "What?"

"I'm going to bite you to death."

There was silence as Dino considered the probable meaning behind his words, and then sighed in relief as he decided that it was most likely just another one of his student's numerous episodes.

"You had me going there, Kyoya. I thought—"

"As in I'm going to kill you right now." Hibari finished.

Dino paused again, and pursed his lips. "Training, right?" He deciphered.

"No." Hibari scowled. How could one misunderstand one's words when he said it so clearly? Maybe he underestimated the Cavallone's stupidity. "_Murder_."

"... okay." _Training_. Dino's mind insisted. After all, everything to the cloud guardian seemed to be vaguely related to killing; maybe it was some sort of weird fetish, maybe he was dropped on the head as a child, he wasn't sure, but there was no need to fret.

Dino took a moment to glance at the mansion's pristine wallpapers. He frowned. "Here?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure? We could go to the training grounds—"

"It'll be harder to drag your lifeless body from there."

"That's... efficient, I guess, but Kyoya, _look_, it's so clean here. If we damage this—"

Hibari made an irritated noise at the back of his throat. "I don't care. Sawada Tsunayoshi will take care of it."

_Tsk. Poor kid, his guardians must give him hell everyday._ Dino shook his head and finally resigned, sighing. "Fine. But it was your idea." He produced his whip from his jacket pocket the same time Hibari unlocked one of his ring boxes.

"Ready?" A fond smile tugged at Dino's lips despite himself. Sudden recollections of the past vaguely played in his head.

"I would worry more about yourself, if I were you." The younger man muttered tersely, and glanced at him with the same disgruntled, narrowed eyes he always wore when fighting. He took hold of his tonfas, tightly gripped in each hand, and lunged.

_The good old days_. Dino couldn't help but snicker. His student was one to always make the first strike, a method that he had once tried to direct him out of, but soon found it useless and almost impossible.

Hibari would always attack first because he found it a waste of his time to linger and wait for the enemy, when he could've been doing something productive.

So Dino merely grinned, and prepared his stance. He brought his arm over his head and then lashed his whip with the intent of tying the younger man's legs together, only to trip on air and then abruptly fall face-forwards unto the floor, an "Oh shit" expression adorning his features.

What came next was an unexpected, and a _completely _unforeseen circumstance that both men had never anticipated.

Hibari, charging forwards, felt a sudden blunt force smack at his forehead and knock him back, teeth gritting together to subdue the intense migraine that would shortly come afterwards.

In normal circumstances, he would've easily blocked the force back, or sidestepped it, but Dino's clumsiness without any of his men present proved to be so stupid, so ridiculous, so _fucking_ absurd, it was enough to throw the laws of human physics off balance and rape gravity.

So they found themselves strewn together as Hibari's back hit the carpeted floor with an unceremonious thud; Dino landing on top of him a short nanosecond later.

Anything that ever looked wrong was effortlessly topped off by this scene right here.

Hibari was about to rip Dino's head off and vigorously threaten him to get the _fuck off_, right now, or so help him God he would gag him with his own whip and—

A soft, girlish voice broke through the tense air, making him freeze mid-threat and his face contort in silent horror.

"Um." Chrome bit her lip, holding her trident close to her chest. "Err. E-excuse me, I have to go. To the Boss's office, since he called me... uh, but you two—carry on! I didn't see anything—s-sorry for interrupting."

She sidestepped them and dashed awkwardly into the next hallway.

Realization hitting him in the face, Hibari's eyes momentarily widened as he both tried to asphyxiate Dino and get him off of him, at the same time barking for the girl's immediately retreating figure.

"Wait. No, _Chrome—_ it's a misunderstanding—"

"Chrome, eh?" Dino's grin was suggestive.

"_Shut up," _Hibari rasped, and then broke his nose.

-X-

It's my first KHR fic C: Go ahead, be ruthless. **I need as much constructive criticism as I can get** (with a side of compliments, because I soak up praise like a sponge. Something shameful, but. Er. Yeah.)

**I support 1896**. Shut up, _they're cute!_ (xD) **And this will probably be a two-shot, depending on my work ethic** and if I my muse—high-energy British poprock songs—will give me enough stuff to work on. And school, and depending how people react to this story. So.

**Reviews are what keeps me focused on my stories, by the way**. C: Hinthint.


	2. Tetsuya Kusakabe

_**Communication Breakdown**_

-X-

The Vongola mansion, aside from boasting the latest patented sprinkler technology—it was able to water any plant from a 50 meter radius and electrocute any organism that walked on the grass, beautiful gardens, and the type of kitchen that people could only see in TV commercials, it also prided itself in its security system—the stuff spy novels were made of.

Complete with laser-filled hallways, doors that closed in sequential order, motion detector paintings, window sensors, retinal scans, keypads, and an alarm that could wake up the dead, you could almost say that it was virtually impossible for any person to ever breach the mansion's defenses, unless of course they were very limber and well-prepared.

Another asset of the security system the mansion was so proud of was the security cameras, placed at every corner of every wall in the entire mansion. The motion detection sensors on it recorded anything that moved as long as it was moving, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The footage that was recorded was sent to the security room, where it was monitored and checked by highly-trained officials tremendously dedicated to their work, and totally not playing poker like other guards were.

Because of this method, there was not a single thing that could go on inside the mansion's walls unseen. The security cameras were especially sensitive in areas near the Vongola boss' office.

Hibari paused, feeling that something was slightly amiss.

His head snapped up, and his eyes found the black screen of a security camera as it stared neutrally back at him.

It had been positioned like that ever since it picked up active movement some twenty minutes ago—the exact same time he had picked a fight with Dino—and stayed there. Which meant that it had also picked up—

Oh shit_._

_Oh shit_.

Blood boiling, Hibari gripped his tonfas tightly.

He thought that by simply destroying the security camera and killing all the guards who monitored it, the problem would be taken care of.

But God hated Hibari.

-X-

_Some days later…_

Plan A had been launched successfully.

Now, Plan B would've also_ already _began, if this bastard—

_This _damn bastard.

Just gave him the goddamned_ tape._

Mukuro twitched.

He stood in some sort of repulsive, probably rat-infested alley. It was hot as burning hell. The air was unbearably humid. And _his hair_ was soon starting to frizz,_ damn it all, _and this man— this _bastard_ in front of him, had still not given him the _damn tape_.

The tape, which contained the invaluable, authentic, boney_ fide_ footage that had the only chance of ever successfully blackmailing the Vongola cloud guardian, and cause a reaction _so terrible_ that it may be enough for him to want to gouge his own eyes out, or commit social suicide…Whichever one could be done faster.

Least to say, after _the_ _truth _was exposed, _he_ wouldn't get laid anymore.

Mukuro chuckled slightly and closed his eyes. This could possibly be the first step in gaining his New World Order; the eradication of Vongola's strongest guardian, and later, the eradication of Vongola itself without any psychopathic maniac hell-bent on killing him to hinder his plans.

This was vital_; _it was worth it. He could wait. He could do this. He had spent almost a decade floating inside some sort of aquarium thing, for Pete's sake. _He could do this._

Though, for someone who had close connections to Mafia Intelligence _and spent years gathering dirt on the cloud guardian_, he had found it slightly insulting to learn that the tape had been in the trashcan all along, and had been found by the janitor who thought that the family didn't need it since, well, it _was_ in the garbage, and sold it.

He went through _hell _trying to search for the person who had bought it for a mere five dollars. It wasn't even in Euros, _dammit_.

He went through three cups of coffee, snapped at one or two random passersby, paid _numerous_ of hotel maids money, one a _painful_ sum of cash, had been threatened by police, chased by a dog, visited a gay strip bar (Hibari would _so_ totally love this), was sexually harassed at least two and a half times (Twice he felt like somebody had been trying to undress him with their eyes, and somebody had _almost_ touched his ass once, but he _almost_ stabbed their jugular with a salad fork too, so it didn't count)—

—and felt so frazzled to the point where he even allowed Chrome to drive (which was pretty much a land-based kamikaze, considering she couldn't see out of one eye and all), that after practically running over an old lady again (Take that, bitch!) and a cat (Chrome, get back in the car), led him here.

To this man, who had probably been mutated at birth.

He still hadn't given him the damn tape.

Mukuro glowered the way gentlemen usually did: jaw tightly clenched and _smiling_, as he patiently tried to wait for the man to stick his head out of his ass.

"So, If I give this to you," he started, enunciating his words like there was peanut butter on the roof of his mouth. "You'll give me two-thousand Euros, and a cruise trip to India."

"Correct." Mukuro smiled charmingly, despite all else. "Now, if you'd just _kindly—_"

"Make it three thousand Euros," the man suddenly cut in. He scrutinized the tape in his hands, wondering why it seemed to be of so much value to the other man. He scratched his chin, and finally shrugged. Eh. As long as it was worth something. "Make it three thousand Euros, and—and—"

"And—?"

"A coupon to a restaurant somewhere. Somewhere... _fancy._"

Mukuro fought the urge to grit his teeth. He could kill this man so easily, but the _tape_. The tape was so invaluable, that if it even s_cratched _the slightest inch while he tried impaling the man, then all his years of meticulous planning would easily go down the drain.

So. For now.

"Fine." Mukuro relented, hissing inwardly. "Three thousand Euros, and a coupon to a fancy restaurant." He looked at the man and cracked a smile. _Good luck with the McDonald's coupon, bastard. I hope you choke on a Big Mac._

-X-

His mind was almost having a panic attack.

Only going back to his office to fetch some forgotten documents, he froze mid-reach when he glanced at his desk.

_The tape wasn't there anymore_.

Hibari closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It should've been there. He was pretty sure he had decimated that security camera and flung it out the window, and incapacitated the guards who had watched it from the security room and collected the tape which had the footage inside of it.

So why wasn't it there anymore? He_ had_ done it, so it _should've _been there. It couldn't just have gotten up and walked away.

Maybe it was there, and he had just been hallucinating. Maybe, this was all just a bad dream, an illusion, and he would open his eyes any second now and find the tape in its CD case, next to his laptop, where he had left it. _Yes_.

Hibari opened his eyes. _Son of a bitch_. It wasn't there.

Okay, Kyoya.

Relax.

Calm down.

_Breathe._ Do not go into a fit of rage and throw the chair across the room. Again.

The cloud guardian dropped his papers and approached his desk, sifting through the stacks of documents and files as he listed off possible places where he must've misplaced it, since nobody would ever dare touch any of his belongings.

He pulled out the desk drawers next, proceeding to search through each one with a rising, almost vigorous sort of determination. Finding that it wasn't there, his head snapped up and gazed at his surroundings, stopping as it fell unto the other sole person in the room.

"Tetsuya."

His loyal minion perked up. "What is it, Hibari-san?"

"There was a tape on my desk yesterday. Have you seen—"

"Oh. _That."_ Kusakabe tried to recall what he did with the tape, and snapped his fingers. "Yes. I got rid of it."

Hibari paused in his searching, shoulders stiff. He looked at his employee. "You _what?"_

Kusakabe flinched. He peered at his boss' suddenly contorted face, trying to exact what the hell had gone wrong and how many seconds he had until shit blew up. He couldn't help but stutter. "T-there was a sticky on it saying 'Garbage Shitbag'."

"… what's your point?"

"Oh. I. Uh." Kusakabe hesitated, now nervous and twirling his thumbs. Didn't he _want_ to get rid of the tape? Who the hell would want to keep something labelled as _Garbage Shitbag_? "I thought you needed to get rid of it, sir, so I took the liberty of doing it for you."

Hibari's face was very grim. "I've told you to never touch my things." Kusakabe squirmed, and he trembled, clenching his jaw and shutting his eyes.

His assistant was just in some sort of brain-fuck today, he assured himself. Otherwise, he would've noticed that something labelled as _Garbage Shitbag_ couldn't just be simply thrown out for the world to see. Everybody made mistakes, though, and his three years worth of anger management classes _would not fucking _go to waste because of something so insignificant.

Killing his assistant would only be a waste of his breath. The man had been with him all through middle-school, high-school, and had proved to be a very useful slave, accomplice, and weapon target.

He'd have to somehow find another flunky who wouldn't endlessly irritate him, and God knew how _easy _that would be.

Hibari opened his eyes, now somewhat calm after numerous breathing exercises. He leveled his minion with a profound stare. "Did you dispose of it properly?"

"Uh. By properly, you mean...?"

"Forced it into the shredder. Burned it inside the microwave. Fed it to the guard dogs; they've got rabies. That would help."

_Help... what? _"Um... no." He flinched when Hibari's eyes narrowed at him.

"What, then?" The cloud guardian pressed, hissing. "Did you break it in some shape or form? With a _hammer_, at least?" The question was borderline threatening.

Kusakabe gulped, rubbing the back of his neck uneasily. He started to worry about his employer's sanity level, though not for the first time. "I'm afraid not, sir."

"Then where is the tape?"

"Um. In the trash. The garbage truck probably already got to it though, since it's a Monday and all, so it might be at the dump right now..."

Hibari stared. "You _threw it in the garbage._"

"Well. Yes."

He processed this quietly; his face slowly darkening as he began to calculate the probability of some ungodly person discovering it and if so, the likelihood of clawing his own secretary without getting caught.

The cloud guardian's first instinct was to grab the nearest weapon he could find, which was a stapler, and try to come up with various methods of killing his assistant with an office supply.

"Err. Kyoya-san—" Kusakabe called warily.

It currently stretched between two and three. Granted, the stapler was still full of staples—

"_Kyoya-san—"_

So that made it ten. He also had _another _stapler full of staples in his other drawer, so—

"Kyoya-san!" Kusakabe raised his voice. He immediately looked down and noticed how high-quality their carpeting was as soon as Hibari's _You wanna die by post-it-notes?_ glare snapped at him. "Uh. Reborn-san is here to see you..."

He shifted his gaze, anger dissipating a bit as his eyes fell unto the ten year old suddenly leaning against his door-frame. Hibari glowered. "What do you want, kid? I'm busy."

"I'd prefer you not call me that." Reborn answered, and then smirked at him pointedly. It sang _I know your most precious secret _and _I'll probably use it as blackmail later. _"Anyway, Tsuna— everyone— well, everyone considered _important_ anyway, needs you in the meeting room."

Hibari grunted. God. Crowding. "Tell them to come here." Wait. No. "How many people are present?"

"I said everyone considered _important_, didn't I?" Reborn scoffed, as if the sentence hadn't explained for itself. He paused upon noticing Hibari's scowl, and added, "There was an email sent to us with an attachment." Another pause. "It's about you."

-X-

First people were slandering him and asking him about his sexuality, now they were going around sending emails about him. WTF.

Didn't they have jobs to do, first of all? God. No wonder a bunch of shit was always on his desk every damn morning. While everyone freaking IMed and giggled like the little girls that they were, he was here slaving away, dictating dumbasses to get their shit right.

_No, you were not supposed to shoot that person. You were supposed to shoot the man _beside _that person._

_I don't care if it's your birthday. Go back to work._

_Rendezvous means to meet up, moron; by no means is it an expensive French chocolate. _

This was exactly why he liked traveling so much. Whenever he came back to _this _godforsaken place, he had to deal with stuff like his men bleeding all over the goddamn carpet, half of them shooting themselves in the foot because they forgot to put the safety lock in their guns, and the other half getting sent to the hospital because inevitably, amidst the sheer stupidity of it all, he would need some sort of stress release.

They also expected him to replace the people he fired/attempted to kill. And what—that was only during the weekends.

The weekdays, however, were worse. Monday, meanwhile, like today, was _the _worst. Monday, it seemed, was Piss Off Hibari day. And true to its title, they were already pissing him off, and he hadn't even had freakin' lunch yet.

_Damn it_. This meeting the kid had called had better been important. The tape was still missing, and he had more significant matters that needed to be attended to, like finding that said tape and getting something to frigging eat.

So, grumbling, he accommodated in reluctance, flashing his assistant a look to discard the relief off of his face because he would kill him later in his sleep, and exited his office.

However, upon walking through two hallways, descending a flight of stairs and opening a door that lead to a new corridor, Hibari absently noted that all the people who he had passed by stared at him rather intently.

This included businessmen, servants, and the occasional fellow hit-men, all of whom tried to stifle their giggles, refrain from choking on their spit, gag, upchuck, and throw shifty or suggestive glances his way.

The strangest thing was, all who threw suggestive glances his way were male. The women just sort of forcibly looked the other way.

And then it hit him; painful, agonizing, and in the form of a pink flier posted on the bulletin board, almost attacking his line of vision. It felt as if someone had just chucked a brick of ice to his face.

He immediately ripped the flier off of the bulletin board, holding it close to his face as his eyes stared at his own figure in the flier, covering two-thirds of the paper and featured _at the center_, pinned down by a large, censored _thing _that had to be Dino.

At the bottom of the page read his name in big, bold letters; HIBARI KYOYA, STRAIGHT OR— it was followed by a question mark.

He scrunched up the flier, and like the sound of hell breaking loose, Hibari Kyoya, gossiped resident homosexual, was on the warpath.

-X-

The door to the meeting room slammed open.

Hibari stood at the doorway, pink flier held threateningly at his fingers like he'd suffocate somebody with it at any moment. "Alright," he snarled, voice low and dangerous. Various family members shifted uneasily under his gaze. "Who's the bastard—"

"Good. You're here," Reborn cut in, already sitting precariously on top of a computer. He turned, gesturing vaguely. "Play it."

"Play _what_."

And the projector in front of them started rolling.

-X-

The video began innocently enough.

At first, it showed Dino and him standing amidst the hallway, posed in their battle stances. Several pairs of eyes stared at the screen, wondering what had been deemed so wrong. It was normal for Vongola's cloud guardian to demand a fight out of almost anyone, immediately, and on the spot, even if it was inside the house.

Several words were exchanged between Video-Hibari and Video-Dino, causing a few sweat-drops and shaken laughs here and there. Video-Hibari's grip on his tonfa tightened, signifying the start of the fight. He lowered his stance slightly, knees bent to build momentum before lunging at Video-Dino.

Video-Dino merely smiled, readied his whip, and posed to strike. Though what came next was entirely unexpected, causing all of the viewers watching to gasp involuntarily and open their mouths in unprecedented horror. _Oh snap_.

It either seemed like Video-Hibari had lunged at Video-Dino and Video-Dino had fell more than willingly on top of Video-Hibari, or that Video-Hibari had lunged at Video-Dino and latched onto him, bringing both men down on the floor rather enthusiastically. Either way, both implied that there was some sort of _fight _going on down there alright, however impossible and trauma-inducing it was.

And—and—was _Video-Hibari blushing!?_

"HOLY SHIT." Gokudera's voice broke through the shocked silence of the crowd.

Hibari's bangs covered his face, hiding the venomous gleam that shone in his eyes. His head snapped up to Gokudera. Gokudera flinched, tried to look angry too, and then failed when Hibari had jumped up at the table and promptly attacked him.

Chaos ensued.

-X-

Cracking a dead man's eyelids open seemed easier than prying the cloud guardian's fingers off of the storm guardian's neck. The man seemed to have developed a chronic strangling disease, along with his smack-the-shit-out-of-people-with-a-blunt-object disease, blow-up-an-orphanage-save-an-animal-shelter disease, and his only-an-elephant-tranquilizer-can-bring-me-down disease.

The rest of the family had to evacuate in fear of getting the floor wiped with their faces. Gokudera, meanwhile, God love him, had to take one for the team.

He should've known better than to express his horror about the possibilities of Hibari Kyoya making a pass at him, since he now liked guys and all.

Days had gone by a lot simpler when they thought the cloud guardian was simply a robot incapable of possessing human love. Now, he was still a robot incapable of possessing human love, but _trying_.

They, namely Reborn and Tsuna, asked if what had just taken place was true, mostly because—

A) They were sort of morbidly curious.

B) They wanted to make sure to never drop a pen and bend down in front of him.

C) They wanted to assure him that just because he finally came out of the closet; it didn't mean that he now couldn't be dangerous, lethal, and gay at the same time. They also wanted to inform him that the Mafia was very open, and that it probably wouldn't be long before half the staff members announced they were also gay. And finally,

D) Dino's mother was on hold, and wanted to know if their relationship was serious or not, and if so, when should her son propose to him and if he was against donating sperms to make babies, because _hello_; if they could fuel motorcycles out of dying-will-flames nowadays, then it certainly meant that they could also impregnate him.

After all, the Cavallone family depended on it.

Hibari got very quiet—_frighteningly_ quiet about this, as they waited with bated breath for his answer. He looked at their faces, and made a mental note to suffocate Dino with his own pillow.

Tsuna and Reborn were still staring at him rather expectantly.

He snarled at them. "I refuse to answer any of those inane questions."

The two paused. Grinned knowingly. And then…

"So it's true, isn't it?"

-X-

Annihilating the Vongola family, Hibari decided, after the huge blow to his pride, would be the best way of satisfying his thirst for vengeance.

Not only did they drop a grenade bomb on it, but after the explosion, they came and _scoured_ the last remaining pieces of his dignity, shattered on the floor, and then repeatedly fucked his carefully built reputation over until it was just a tiny little thing in the corner, stripped down, bare, and restless until it had its revenge.

Now, the Vongola family, aside from its impressive status and infamy, was not a very hard family to crack. The opponent families had been getting it all wrong, neglecting the seemingly insignificant little details and instead aiming to target the big picture all at once. But what was a picture without its details?

The truth was, all one really needed to do in order to overthrow the Vongola family were to cause some sort of inner turmoils.

I. e: break the espresso machine, and nobody would be able to function for days. Steal the wine from the basement, and they would end up killing each other. Kidnap the women, or fuck, the_ janitor_, and it would all cause them to have some sort of panic attack. Anything would suffice, really.

The _real_ problem, though, would be the disposing of the bodies. The Vongola family had a legion of family members, and finding a cemetery or a lake big enough to fit all of them would be a bitch.

And, unfortunately for Hibari, it all came down to these frustrating elements:

1) Whether or not it was raining.

2) How deep and murky the nearest body of water was.

3) If he remembered to take Tylenol AM instead of Tylenol PM.

4) How much alcohol was consumed.

5) If he even really wanted to touch their decaying bodies, since their herbivore-ness could, God forbid, infect him someday.

7) And if so, how much bubble-wrap, plastic gloves, and peroxide was available on immediate hand, and if he really even felt like keeping a small bottle of hand-sanitizer in his pocket, just in case.

There was also the need to hire a staged massacre, how much he could threaten the maids to keep quiet about the incident, bribe money, mourners, and fifty coffins.

He probably even had to cry at the funeral too—or at least, show a tiny bit of remorse... like an indication that he was about to cry, or a speech... because if he didn't, then they would all probably be suspicious and give him looks throughout the duration of the funeral, considering that what he had done at last year's Christmas Party was sort of a dead giveaway.

He would also have to estimate his chances of:

1) Being able to summon a get-away car on such a short notice if they found out.

2) Getting a new identity.

3) A decent alibi.

4) About two million yen from his retirement savings account.

5) And a plane ticket to some other foreign country, where, let's face it, he'd probably end up committing the same crime again anyway.

Plus, he was kind of lethargic in that 'I-need-my-sleep-or-I-wouldn't-even-have-the-energy-to-emit-a-proper-murderous-intent-in-the-morning' sort of way. And that really wouldn't help, since he'd have to do all of this before daylight.

Hibari thought all of this over, and then scowled at how his idea had suddenly turned against his favor.

He brooded, continuing to rip the gaudy pink fliers, which announced his newly found sexuality to the world, off of the walls (its numbers had somehow multiplied all throughout the mansion) when he felt an unexpected thwack at his shoulders.

He blinked, turning around to see Chrome Dokuro suddenly beside him, rubbing her forehead and clenching what seemed to be the same gaudy pink fliers as he was holding...

Hibari's eyes immediately narrowed. "_You—_"

"Mukuro-sama didn't mean to!" She squeaked, panicked by his expression. Her eyes instantly widened, abruptly cupping her mouth with her hand.

"Mukuro...?" He repeated slowly, tone slightly shocked. And then it clicked.

_Of course_. Who else would use such a gaudy color as _pink_, besides Lussuria, to attract speculators but him? Who else would come up with such an ostentatious bullshit, and have no qualms about spreading it but him? Who else made it their life's goal to make his life a living hell? Who else but—

"_Mukuro_." The cloud guardian seethed finally, hands balling into tight fists. He remembered now. He swore he heard a familiar laugh going off at the end of that video, but had put it aside thinking it was just his imagination...

But now. _Now_.

"He's the one who sent that email here, isn't he?" Hibari bared his teeth. "He's the one who managed to find that tape, _dared to use it against me, _and now you're helping him by spreading those fliers all over the _goddamned_ place and_—_"

"I'm taking them down!"

"—you're taking them down..." Hibari paused. He gave her a suspicious glare.

Chrome squirmed under the pressure of his scrutiny. "While it's true that, at first, I... I _was_ the one putting them up... I slowly came to realize it was cruel to do something like this— to a, a person whose just _finally_ admitted—"

"I'm not. Gay." He quickly snarled.

The girl's eyes softened upon his reaction, and he may or may not have thought that she was disturbed. "Hibari-san, I've told you before. I _understand—_"

"Listen." Hibari gritted his teeth, sensing an oncoming migraine. "What do you not _get_ about the words _I'm not gay_?"

"I get... that you're just misunderstood—"

"Are you serious."

"—and that Mukuro-sama... that Mukuro-sama's not as gentle as I thought he was."

"Shocking."

"I can't believe he _actually _did something so shameful to a fellow guardian..." She mumbled, biting her lip and gazing distractedly at the floor.

Hibari was silent about this. He opened his mouth, hissing "Where is he?" All of this. All of this would immediately end, if he could just get a hold of that man's neck... and _strangle _him.

Chrome lifted her eyes, looking at his face rather hesitantly. "South America."

"... South... _America?_" He repeated numbly. The distance almost made him feel hopeless. Damn it, _that bastard. _

Sensing his afflicted tone, Chrome's head immediately snapped up, holding him down in what she hoped was a determined look. "H-Hibari-san... I can take full responsibility for this."

"No." Hibari scowled, immediately sensing what she was planning. Though Chrome prevailed.

"_Yes. _It's my fault for even asking about your business... and intruding upon your and Dino-san's... er. A-alone time," He twitched at this. "So... to make up for it, I'll do anything I can to help you—"

"I don't _need _anybody's help."

"But you'll have it_" _She continued persistently. "I-I'll try my best, and—"

"_No._" He simply ended, turning around and leaving no room for discussion. He was about to walk away, though stopped as he heard his name pronounced by two men passing by.

"Did you see that flier? Cavallone must be helluva strong, being able to pin Hibari like that..."

"Yeah. Looked like they were making out instead, though."

Chrome's eyes widened. Hibari had gone completely still.

It then took all of her strength to prevent the cloud guardian from immediately tearing the two apart once they said this. And when he eventually broke away from her grip, she had to yell for them to run.

But it was too late. It was always too late.

-X-

The next day transpired as the day before it had, except for the times when the cloud guardian came out of his office.

When this happened, life in the mansion was comparable to Hell.

The man had the killing intent of a lion on steroids, and when wronged, chased after you like a lawnmower on a rampage. When walking the halls, he possessed a sort of force that made people slam themselves into the wall in fear of having contact with him. He also looked at you funny, in that I-think-I'll-kill-you-next-insert-crazy-laugh-here sort of way.

It wasn't his fault, though. After countless of questions concerning his sexuality, numerous passes from other gay men, family members ensuing him their support, love advice, dating websites, and women wanting to introduce him to their gay friends, a man was only bound to snap.

And then, as if things couldn't get much worse, Dino had called him. Their conversation went something like this:

"Hey, Kyouya. I didn't know you were gay for me."

"... what? Who is this?"

"It's Dino. So, those countless violent threats were really a declaration for your love, huh?"

Hibari hung up. He also threw his cell phone out the window.

From then on, there wasn't a day that passed by when a person who accidentally looked at him wrong didn't get sent to the hospital.

Bills and lawsuits against him soon piled up. Tsuna eventually had to come to his office and beg him to restrain his anger or Vongola would soon go bankrupt, and they'd be forced to sell Yamamoto's body to the fan-girls.

"I think... I think you should go on a vacation, Hibari-san." The Vongola boss had advised. "You know, find yourself a nice boy and settle down for a while. It can just be a fling or whatever, but he'll be able to give you the break you need... I, um, hear Tahiti's nice."

From just those words, he could have attacked Tsuna right then and there. He could have gotten his tonfas from underneath his desk, and smacked him one. He could have, but he didn't.

It was at this moment that he came to a horrible realization that this was not something brute violence could fix. He could have spent an entire week beating anybody who thought he was gay into a bloody pulp, and still. _Still,_ their minds would not change.

Tsuna's words, genuine and sincere, had summed everything up.

They really thought he was gay.

-X-

Hibari glared at the Mist Guardian's door as if it owed him money. He then stared at the doorknob agonizingly, as if just touching it would cause him great pain.

_Damn it. _It turned out that using violence as a last resort did not work in situations where you had already considered killing everything that moved on plain sight, and failed.

_Now they tell him, _not when he was in preschool where it would've probably been more useful and could've possibly_—possibly, _don't hold your breath or anything—made him into a normal boy, unlike the sociopath he was today.

But hey. Such was life. And further evidence that God didn't really like Hibari all that much, what with the daily breaking of the sixth amendment and all. Figures.

He had already been hit on earlier this morning, anyway. The cashier, who was, you guessed it, a man, had handed him his coffee and muffin with a phone number and a note secretly stashed inside the bag.

Upon his way out, he had fished out his breakfast, felt some sort of paper, pulled it out, and read the words through a mouthful of bread. "Do you want me to butter your muffin..."

After an encounter like that, it wasn't like his reputation could stoop any lower. It only took this much more,_ this_ much more for the last thread of his sanity to finally snap. There was no telling how much hell he could make then.

But anyway.

This. The door. The lawsuits. The doorknob. The _unfairness _of it all.

Perpetually loathing himself, Hibari sighed irritatingly and abruptly came inside the Mist Guardian's office. Chrome had instantaneously jumped upon his arrival, a surprised expression adorning her features.

"You've brought me into this," He whispered threateningly, glaring hatefully at the floor. "You will get me out."

Realizing the full meaning of his words, she beamed.

-X-

And there goes part 2. **As you have probably realized by now, there's going to be another installment**, since I have failed in making this work as a two-shot. But then again, I always fail...

**Sorry for updating so late... I meant to update sooner**, but gosh, it was hell trying to make this believable and yet somewhat amusing, you know?

_Yes, "Do you want me to kill you by post-it-notes?" was totally a reference from Get Smart. Which, I should add, does not belong to me._ And I'd like to thank **CanadianCookie**, my new beta for proof-reading this story C: She made this fic viewable for public eyes, so it wouldn't make you go running away in terror. I'd have probably posted this in May if it wasn't for her...

**Reviews are VERY MUCH**, stress the very part, **welcomed**. And adored.


	3. Lussuria

Communication Breakdown

* * *

Hibari Kyouya was not a very patient man. Neither was he very nice or easy-going, or was one who could easily be led around or be made to do unnecessary things. Well, 99% of the time. Reborn and the battle between good and evil and various animal shelters across the globe fell under the 1% category.

But anyway.

When he had told Chrome Dokuro that it was her fault the entire Mafia and its affiliations now went around thinking that he was gay, and that it was her job to go and fix it before the two most obvious things in the Mafia Universe became "The family always comes first" and "Did you hear that Hibari Kyouya is gay?" he had meant that she explain the entirety of this situation to Sawada Tsunayoshi and everybody else and claim it as_ her_ mistake.

So, in conclusion, the words "You brought me into this, you will get me out" _really meant_ "You are the one that caused this clusterfuck of a situation, either directly or indirectly, I don't care; but you will march into Sawada Tsunayoshi's office as soon as possible and _make it right,_ even if I have to _drag_ you by the hair kicking and screaming."

In no circumstances did it mean for her to try and make things better by 'helping out' and 'getting people to understand'. Conditions were already fucked up as it is; there was no need for her to spout more bullshit to people that would no doubt just end in them thinking that he was gay_er_.

Hibari decided that if he ever discovered a malignant tumor growing in some part of his internal organs, he would no doubt name it after her.

* * *

Tsuna scratched his cheek. Reborn, sitting beside him, had his chin on the palm of his hand and looked quite listless, and more importantly, unimpressed.

"So you're saying that... everything..." Tsuna paused, eyes crinkling in disbelief. "Was just a big misunderstanding?"

"Um, that's... that's correct." The woman replied, after having just explained the situation; though, she was a little unconvinced herself.

The two shared a glance. Chrome had immediately looked away, remembering her reason for being in her boss's office in the first place. It was to vouch for Hibari-san's sexuality, not _doubt_ it.

"The misunderstanding..." She continued gingerly. "It was my fault."

Tsuna's voice was skeptic. "So—he's not... _gay_, then...?"

"That's what he said."

"What he _said?_"

"I mean—well, yes, it is what he said." Chrome paused. "Not that there's anything wrong with that. Being a heterosexual or a homosexual is perfectly natural."

"Of course not—I mean, of course it is! I meant to say 'of course not' after you said that there's nothing wrong with being gay, which there isn't, but you didn't finish yet and it's rude to cut someone off, so—" Tsuna broke off, feeling guilty under his Mist Guardian's wide-eyed stare.

"You're not making any sense." Reborn informed him, to which the 10th Boss of Vongola immediately hissed a '_Ssh, Reborn!' _and deftly switched his attention to Chrome.

"Ignore him, Chrome, I _am_ supportive." Tsuna explained hurriedly. "We're completely 100% supportive behind the movement, and we'll do whatever it takes to make Hibari-san feel comfortable once again."

"Thar's great." The girl brightened. "Hibari-san would be happy to hear that. Love knows no bounds."

Tsuna's eye twitched slightly, though he nevertheless gave her a big smile.

Not that he was against it or anything, but it was hard to get a grip around the idea that one of his toughest, most violent guardians _ever_ could possibly have a thing for him in the future, God forbid it. How awkward would _that_ be? Tsuna tried to think of a way of how he would break it to him gently, without getting his face smashed in by the dull end of a tonfa, just in case.

Maybe it was for the best, since they all knew that Hibari would end up abusing his future lover anyway; whomever that may be.

Maybe, God made it this way so that whoever Hibari ended up inflicting domestic violence on would at least be a man, instead of a woman, and they'd be able to endure the twisted relationship for the better. He didn't know anybody who would want to, but still. It was all for the greater good. Or the lesser of two evils. And stuff.

Still, Tsuna found himself already pitying the poor soul who'd end up with the Cloud Guardian in the future. He just hoped whoever Hibari picked had some pretty big balls.

That, again, was not meant to be taken literally. It was also not meant to be taken as a nasty pun, or sarcasm. It was just a little slip-up; he had meant it in a _good way, _and it wasn't as if... as if... women _couldn't_ have balls too, you know—

Well, okay, they couldn't _seriously _have balls per se, because that would just be _gross _and_ disgusting _and picturing Kyoko with it was more than enough to make his eyes water, but they could have _the _balls to_— _fuck it.

"Reborn." The 10th Boss of Vongola called, gesturing for the ten-year-old to momentarily take his place. Tsuna dropped his head onto the desk, trying to erase the nightmare fuel that had just passed in his mind, which would no doubt be haunting him for the rest of his life.

Hibari. Women. Balls. _Oh God_. A gallon of brain-bleach, please. Or vodka. Vodka would be nice.

"You were saying?" The ten-year-old then piped up, urging Chrome to go on.

"Oh, right..." The woman murmured softly, before continuing in a fluid, practiced voice. "To _summarize—_everything is my fault. I was the one who ran into their... _awkward_ positions and... i-in my shocked state, I accidentally told Mukuro-sama about it, and Mukuro-sama, being—well," She paused.

"—being somewhat shocked too—" It was supposed to be _'Mukuro, being the fuck face that he is'_ from what Hibari had told her to say, but Chrome was severely against saying _that._

"Anyway, Mukuro-sama... being somewhat _shocked _too, just wanted to confirm if it was true or not by proceeding to... post pink fliers everywhere in the mansion..." Chrome's voice faltered.

Defending her master's innocence never seemed as hard to do as now. If a man wanted to confirm if something was true or not, wouldn't he just ask? Chrome bit her lip, trying to think desperately. Mukuro-sama was Mukuro-sama. Yes. He was _Mukuro-ish_. That was just what he was, likewise how Hibari-san was also Hibari-ish.

She continued her speech, now in a more eased state of mind than before. "And so, it accidentally lead to _this_. It was completely _my _mistake. Perhaps, if I just hadn't put my nose into others' businesses, then I wouldn't have seen something that I _wasn't_ supposed to see. I was in the _wrong_... and I... should've just kept it to myself."

The young woman finished speaking, taking a big gulp of air after she was done. She looked up briefly, wondering with a worried crease in her forehead if she had recited Hibari's prepared speech right. After all, it was _the least _she could do after everything that she'd done.

Apparently, in his speech, she was quite the nosy bitch.

"Oh, and Hibari-san is not gay." The girl proclaimed after a minute, recalling how he had said that it was very important to state this at the end.

With vehement feelings.

"At all!" Chrome declared with a soft turn on her voice, forgetting the 'vehement feelings' part, and then proceeded to try and seem angry by thumping her fist onto the table. A few papers scattered, which she promptly tried to fix.

Reborn looked at her for a long while, before slowly opening his mouth. "Chrome. More than half of homosexual men feel uncomfortable in their first few weeks of coming out." He drawled, quite bemusedly. "How do you know that Hibari isn't merely lying to you because he feels embarrassed about everyone finding out about his sexuality before he became comfortable with it?"

"Oh..." Chrome paused, thinking. "W-well. I haven't thought of that, really." She admitted. "But I'm pretty sure—"

"No, Chrome." Reborn halted her, voice firm.

"Are you certain?"

"As certain as a unicorn jumping over a rainbow."

Chrome took all of this with new enlightenment, glad to hear their opinions. Though, she still had her doubts. "But how do you _know_ that Hibari-san is really gay?" The young woman questioned, eyes crinkling.

Tsuna mirrored her confused expression. "What do you mean?"

"You seem to accept the matter so easily, so readily, without question or doubt, almost as if you knew beforehand..." Chrome repeated. "How are you so sure?"

"Well..." Tsuna scratched his head. "I, uh—"

"Tsuna has Hyper Intuition, Chrome." Reborn said simply.

The Vongola's boss was immediately embarrassed. "Wha—Reborn!"

"But I thought that was only for battles..."

"Oh, no. It can be a very sharp gaydar too. Or in Tsuna's case, a very late gaydar."

"_Shut up, Reborn!_"

"Gaydar...?"

"The ability for people to detect one's homosexuality." Reborn explained. "Like in Hibari's case."

"O-oh... that makes some sense. I think." Chrome said, and finally stood up, bowing before the two. "Well, thank you for your time, Boss. Reborn-san." She addressed politely, exiting the office.

Once the woman left, Tsuna cast the ten-year-old a distraught look. "I can't believe you just told her that." He murmured, face-palming himself. "That doesn't even make any sense."

"It makes perfect sense, if you think about it. Primo also had a very acute hyper intuition."

"Crazy bastard," Tsuna murmured under his breath. "... did the past generations have to deal with shit like this everyday?"

"Always. But I think this particular one is the first."

"Fantastic."

* * *

Softly closing the doors to the Main Office, Chrome took a moment to pause and absorb all of the information which was just given to her. She leaned against the dark, wooden frame of the door, absently gazing down at the Persian carpet in a reverie.

So _that's _how it is...

She always knew that Hibari-san was going through a lot of inner turmoil, what with being such a lunatic sociopath whose friends only seemed to consist of forest animals but... coupled with his frustration of trying to disguise his _true self, _in fear of what other people might say... All of it must've been really hard for him to take on by himself.

It didn't help that instead of assisting him from coming out comfortably, he was now being attacked _because _of it. No wonder he decided to cover it up and kept on denying it so persistently. Imagine just how long he had been living like that, living in a _lie_ from the fear of rejection.

_What a brave man._ Chrome mused sympathetically. She clenched her fists, eyes suddenly hardening in determination. She didn't want to work in this kind of environment: in a place where people were mocked and ridiculed just because of their true nature. In her heart, she knew that Vongola was better than this. Heck, they already had a member that was out in the open! So why couldn't they give Hibari-san the same freedom too?

What they needed right now, Chrome figured, was someone who had experience in these matters.

* * *

"What the hell are you all doing here?" Hibari inquired coldly. Though he still retained most of his desires to roundhouse kick anyone who irritated him to the face and make them eat the steel of his tonfa, '_maturity'_ and the fact that his bitch hot and cold hormones from teenage-hood had already left his system, sometimes, once in a while, allowed him to entertain the notion of wresting his irritation and act more calmly towards his dumb-shit peers.

But they just made it so_ goddamned _hard sometimes.

The door to his office hung agape as the Cloud Guardian had immediately stopped upon the sight of every Vongola personnel standing in the middle of his office. His eye twitched slightly. _Calm down Kyoya, Calm down_. He repeated to himself mentally, trying to summon every ounce of restraint in his arm to not swing his tonfa like a boomerang and smack everybody in the face all at once.

They looked rather somber and... was, was that _sincerity _in their eyes? The hell. "Get out. All of you." He demanded instead, glaring.

"Hibari-san," Chrome called, stepping out from the center of the crowd and towards him. Hibari's attention snapped to her. His eyes narrowed. _Dokuro, _the fucking tumor. He should've known.

"I do not tolerate crowding. Especially in my office." The Cloud Guardian said matter-of-factly. Just the very presence of them here grated on his every nerves. "If you all don't get out in _three seconds—_"

"We just have a few things we want to say to you," The woman interrupted. She had her arms clasped in front of her, tone urgent as she gave him an almost pleading look.

Hibari didn't care. "Get out or I will _defenestrate_ you."

"As in _throw us out the window? _This is the fucking fifth floor—!" Gokudera's (who still retained a head, leg, and shoulder cast) hysterical voice was drowned out.

"Chrome," It was Dino who stepped in this time. He shook his head, gesturing for her to take a step back before he looked at his previous student. "I knew this would happen. He won't let us. We have to force him."

"_You._" Hibari growled. He knew he should've asphyxiated him with a pillow while he was still at the hospital. "_You _ did this?"

"As soon as I heard, I came." Dino said. His eyes were grave. "You may want to take a seat."

Hibari did not move.

"Kyoya, the first step to overcoming a problem is to _admit _you have them."

"You being alive is my problem."

"I have a few things that I prepared to say to you." Dino continued, effortlessly ignoring his statement. He pulled out a piece of folded paper from his jacket pocket and cleared his throat before unfolding it.

"Kyoya, several years ago, I was your mentor. If I knew then what I knew know, I wouldn't have put you off as just another psychotic, blood-thirsty demon that was incapable of human empathy. I know that you're going through a lot of obstacles now, and that your... _predicament_... must be confusing and difficult. As your mentor, I would advise you to just accept yourself, Kyoya, as I accept you. You can tell me anything. _Anything_."

Deep silence fell over the room as some of the people nodded their heads at the Cavallone boss's words. The few women who were present teared up at this sincerity. Then, Dino looked at Hibari with deep, sad eyes. "I've also realized something. Kyoya, I've been so stupid and oblivious. I'm really sorry if you've had feelings for me before when I was mentoring you and that I didn't no—OH _SHIT_ SOMEBODY HOLD HIM DOWN."

Hibari's hypothalamus, the part of the brain that controlled rage and aggressive behavior, had completely and immediately disintegrated upon realizing the meaning behind the Cavallone's boss' words, and the Cloud Guardian all at once flung his body and fucking _flew_ to attack said man. It took the horde of people present to stop him.

They tried to block his way to Dino, almost to no avail. Three-fourths of the people present died in this battle, but in some sort of miracle, Hibari had somehow been taken and tied down to a chair by the sheer will of God to make his life even more miserable than it already was.

It had already been a very miraculous act that they even went this _far, _to go inside the Cloud Guardian's office and remain for five minutes. It was very strange, as nobody had ever set foot in his office before and many previously thought that it was filled with countless of torturing devices, shrieks of agony, the bones of infant children littering the ground, or that it served as an entrance into the gateways of hell, which acted like a vortex and sucked whoever stepped inside into its dark, monstrous realm. When told that there would be an intervention held inside, there was about a delay of one hour, as some of the people were scared that upon their very first step a trap door would open beneath them and reveal sharp bamboo sticks poking out the ground.

To Hibari's satisfaction, only a clump of people were left compared to the crowd earlier, and they were all huddled near a corner. This was why he hated crowds. They were such weaklings, relying on each other for strength. How disgusting.

Dino coughed blood. "Okay, I'm sorry if I offended you, I didn't realize that you felt so strongly about me—"

"He's trying to break lose!"

"Hold him down!"

"Oh God, we're all gonna die!"

"Please be quiet!" It was Tsuna who spoke, voice sounding frazzled yet commanding enough to be respected. Compared to the rest, who looked dogged and were beaten half to death, the Vongola boss remained impressively clean. Only his jacket-suit had been shredded to pieces. But then again, he was the wisest in activating his Hyper Dying Will mode immediately once the fray began. "I think we need to speed up the process, and just explain why we came here."

Hibari waited, curious enough to momentarily halt in his attempts to break free from the ropes.

"Such a stroke of genius by Chrome." Reborn supplied, smiling cryptically. Like Tsuna, he stayed clean—in fact, there was not even a speck of dirt on him. Once the fight ensued, the ten-year-old somehow disappeared and watched amusedly from an unknown distance. "You should thank her."

"_Thank her my ass_," Hibari muttered, though nonetheless stayed silent as everyone waited.

And then, like a beam of light shining down from the heavens, Lussuria literally materialized out of nowhere.

Oh.

My.

Fucking.

God.

They did not just. Oh fucking hell.

The Varia member came out of the closet to add a clever metaphor to the whole process.

"Ta-da~!" His multicolored, parrot-like hair shone like the sun coming from behind the clouds.

Those who understood his meaning clapped. Hibari's cerebral cortex promptly committed suicide, too embarrassed to even begin to analyze and process the situation into his brain.

* * *

_Meanwhile, in South America_...

Mukuro, situated inside a glorious lobby of a luxurious hotel, sat across a younger man with green hair. He gave him a smile, "Little one—"

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't call me that anymore, master pineapple."

"You damn_ brat_—" Mukuro had risen from his seat, voice rising in tremor as his smile instantly vanished and turned into a murderous growl.

Everybody stared.

Mukuro coughed, and after regaining some composure, he sat back down and smoothed his hair as if he hadn't lost his temper seconds ago. Once again, he gave the green-haired man a smile. "Since that _savage_ freak somehow brainwashed our poor Chrome into working for his side, I have a wonderful opportunity for you. But first, you need to come with me to Italy."

* * *

A/N: Yes. Two years later, I finally updated. SUE ME.


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